Joe Biden’s son Hunter was indicted on Thursday on federal charges of illegal possession of a firearm, Special Counsel David Weiss said on Thursday. The prosecutor filed three counts against the son of the U.S. president.
Hunter Biden is accused of making a false statement when buying a gun in 2018, saying he did not suffer from addictions. He becomes the first offspring of a sitting president to be charged.
According to court documents, the younger Biden “knowingly made a false written statement” and came into possession of the gun illegally.
The Democratic president’s son had reached an initial guilty plea agreement in June with U.S. Attorney Weiss in the Biden family’s home state of Delaware, which likely would have allowed him to avoid jail time and an embarrassing trial. But in July, a judge raised doubts about the validity of the arrangement, which was then cancelled. He subsequently pleaded not guilty to tax fraud.
Hunter Biden has also been targeted for years by his father’s predecessor, Donald Trump, and many other Republicans, who accuse him of corruption.
Conservative lawmakers accuse him in particular of having made dubious deals in Ukraine and China while Joe Biden was vice-president (2009-2017), capitalising on his father’s networks and name.
“My son has done nothing wrong. I trust him,” Biden recently said of Hunter’s charges of tax evasion and illegal possession of a firearm.
Hunter Biden, who has long suffered from drug and alcohol addictions, says he has not taken anything since 2019 following an intervention by his second wife Melissa, with whom he has a son, and his father.
